by Martha Carr
“You hit on one of the major questions of history everywhere, I think.” Laura followed her youngest sister into the massive chamber, where the energy core rested in the metal cradle built in the floor. The glass-like structure of the core’s clear column rose high above them, connecting into another metal cradle attached to the ceiling. Nothing else in the chamber but the core. No flashing lights, no Gorafrex, no witch about to be sacrificed for the creature’s eventual escape. “You think the Gorafrex has been to every single one of these by now?”
“I’m not gonna pretend to know what that thing wants or how it checks off whatever boxes exist for ‘suitable to activate first with a witch’s lifeforce magic’.” Nickie stopped a few feet away from the energy core and gazed up its smooth surface. “But it knows who we are now, doesn’t it?”
Laura swung the massive Velikan wrench at her side. “Yep.”
“And it knows what we can do,” Emily added.
“It’s gonna be coming for us. Eventually.” Nickie shook her dark hair away from her face and took a deep breath. “We still have a lotta work to do.”
“We’ll get there.” Laura turned to face the middle Hadstrom sister and nodded toward the energy core. “Wanna take a stab?”
Emily guffawed on the other side of her. It echoed through the chamber, and she covered her mouth.
“Ha, ha.” Nickie lifted her iron dagger. “Take a stab. Actually, I’m good with just staying here and letting you two have all the fun.”
“You sure?”
“Yep. Destroy away.”
Laura and Emily exchanged a look, but neither of them argued. “Em?”
“Yeah.” The youngest Hadstrom sister grinned and turned her attention to the iron orb in her hand. Her finger pressed down on the little button on the top of the sphere, and the trapdoor clicked up on the bottom. The super thin, weirdly flexible iron chain spilled out of the opening, and Emily grabbed the end with her half-gloved hand so she could rest the chain against the metal panel Laura had added to the palm. “Really great invention, by the way.”
“Well, I kinda owed you one.”
“Yeah, you did. I like the glove. No more bloody hands for me.” Emily only had to think about sealing the end of the chain to the metal panel in her glove before her copper ring flashed. The two pieces of metal bonded into one seamless part. “Honestly, it’s super weird that my orb broke the way it did last night. That it didn’t snap off here”—she pointed to the metal plate on her glove— “but just pulled right out of the actual ball part.”
“That’s probably cuz we still need to find out how to get the Gorafrex out of its host,” Laura replied. “You wrapped it up perfectly with that…what are you calling it now?”
Emily smirked. “The Strangler.”
“Uh…cool. That thing did its part last night. We just weren’t fast enough ‘cause we didn’t know how to get the Gorafrex out of the human.”
“It was always meant to be a temporary hold, huh?” Emily lifted an eyebrow at her iron orb and shrugged. “That’s cool, I guess. I’m not about to do anything temporary to this energy core though.” Lifted out of her contemplative mood, the youngest witch turned toward her sisters with a massive grin and an exaggerated wink. She took a few skipping steps away from the energy core, wound her arm back, and launched the iron orb toward the center of the glass-like column. She’d been practicing so much it felt like second nature to cast the spell with her copper ring to propel the orb with more force than remotely possible without magic. Even before the flash from her ring subsided, the orb smashed through the clear column—in one side and out the other. Shattered fragments of whatever material this was—none of the sisters thought it was true glass—tinkled down into the center of the core.
Emily hadn’t prepared for gravity taking its course. Her iron orb reached the end of its tether, and the chain caught on the edge of the second hole it had made. The round hunk of metal swung downward with a loud, echoing bang against the glass, and Emily was jerked across the chamber floor by her hand—with the glove and the iron chain attached to it.
She shouted, her Converse sneakers squeaking across the floor, and right before the iron orb pulled her farther than she could go, she released the chain from her glove with an explosive flash of light from her ring. The string slithered up the side of the glass column, the iron orb fell to the chamber floor with a resounding thud and echo like a struck gong, and Emily slammed into the base of energy core.
For a few seconds, the entire room fell silent, then Nickie and Laura rushed toward their sister. “Oh, jeeze. Em, are you okay?” Laura reached out for her, but the youngest Hadstrom witch pushed herself off the black cylinder and blinked. When she stepped back, a light-blue glow shimmered along the outside of the core where she’d smacked against it. The same magical light pulsed along Emily’s forearms, chest, and stomach, and then faded.
“I’m…fine.” She looked at her sisters with a spreading smile. “Definitely didn’t expect that. But I guess my trusty sidekick took care of everything else for me.”
Nickie snickered, then cut it short when she remembered how not funny any of this was. “Your sidekick?”
“Your ring did that on its own?” Laura grabbed Emily’s hand and took a close look at the legacy ring on her thumb.
“Well, hey. I probably deserve a little credit, don’t ya think?” Emily grabbed Laura’s hand, catching her sister off guard, and shook it curtly. “Maybe I’m quicker on my feet than I thought.”
“Everyone with the awful jokes today.” Nickie let herself laugh. “You were definitely moving across the floor.”
“And my reaction time was perfect. Put up a cushioning shield right before I hit this thing.” Emily slapped the side of the energy core, eliciting a high-pitched echo that vibrated the length of the clear cylinder. “And I managed to disconnect from my weapon that turned against me.” She glared at the iron orb, which had rolled a little from behind the huge energy core and lay in a coil of iron string. “That went better than I thought, actually.”
“I think maybe you’ve been practicing a little too much, Em.” Nickie chuckled and patted her sister on the shoulder. “You really rocketed that thing.”
“I mean, I gotta make sure I do it right. Next time we end up fighting the Gorafrex, the last thing I wanna do is miss.”
“Okay.” Laura took a deep breath. “Just as long as you don’t blow a hole through the human host in the process, okay? Maybe tone it down.”
Emily glanced up at the two jagged holes in the energy core’s cylinder and shrugged. “Yeah, okay.” Then she went to collect her orb from the chamber floor.
Laura hefted the massive wrench in her hand and stepped backward, eying the energy core. “Anybody mind if I just…”
“Go for it!” Emily shouted, lifting her weapon again and cradling it under one arm.
“All yours.” Nickie stepped back and watched her older sister lift the wrench to take a good swing. “Hey, maybe keep a tighter grip on it than last time, huh?”
“Well now that I know what it can do…” Laura stuck her tongue out, then lifted the wrench a little in front of her. “Kinda like putt-putt, right?”
“When was the last time you played putt-putt?” Emily folded her arms.
“Probably the last time you went bowling, Em.”
Emily let out a long string of fake laughs until both her sisters eyed her long enough to make her stop.
“Just pretend it’s a club.” Laura swung the wrench with a little more force than she’d ever swing anything on a real putt-putt course. The Velikan wrench hit the metal cradle of the energy core with a metallic ping, and a blue light flashed on contact. A massive crack splintered up the side of the core from metal base to metal ceiling attachment. When the crack reached the height of the two holes in the clear cylinder, the entire tube of glass-like material shattered, raining toward the witches. “Okay. Let’s go.” Laura tightened her grip on the giant socket wrench and booked it.
Emily gazed up at all the twinkling shards falling in slow motion. “Looks like teeth just fallin’ out of someone’s mouth…”
“Emily!” Nickie shouted.
“Yeah.” She turned and ran after her sisters before the wave of jagged, fractured glass smashed into the ground.
The sisters made it all the way out of the chamber and into the curving hallway before a rumble louder than any sound a fallen energy core had made filled the corridor. It came from above them. All three ducked in response before slowing and turning to gaze at the ceiling.
“What’s going on up there?” Nickie asked.
“That’s…” Laura cocked her head, listening to the high-pitched whine of the engines and the squeal of tires over tarmac. “Holy crap. That’s a plane.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever flown in a plane and heard it make that sound.” Emily glared at the ceiling. “So why is that one—”
The floor of the corridor rocked beneath them, shuddering and tilting upward slightly. Laura caught a stumbling Emily, who was only concerned about keeping her iron orb in her arms so it didn’t roll away down the buckling hall. “What the heck?”
The air filled with muffled, shouting voices coming toward them—not from the underground hallway but from the surface. “Okay, we’ve never destroyed an energy core and had all this craziness happen at the same time.” Nickie spread her arms. “Did we do this?”
“I don’t think so.” Laura’s eyes widened. “I’d say either the Gorafrex activated another one, or whatever’s going funky with Austin magic is getting worse.”
Nickie shook her head and stared at her sister. “I didn’t hear the drums.”
“I don’t know if that means anything. Assuming you always hear them when the Gorafrex is about to kill another witch or wizard…”
“It’s the magic that’s already been knocked out of normal.” Emily grimaced. “I thought it only got worse when another energy core turned on.”
“I don’t think Rutilda knew what she was saying most of the time during our little chat. She was kinda losing it.” Laura twirled her finger by her ear, glancing at the ceiling beneath so much noise and shouting. “I have a bad feeling about what’s going on up there. We should go.”
“Yep.” Nickie nodded at the translucent transport bubble growing to full size in front of them.
The sisters met each other’s gazes as they stepped through the thin magical membrane. “Home?” Laura asked. The others nodded, then they all disappeared.
Chapter Twelve
The bubble burst in the Hadstrom sisters’ dining room, and Laura stormed across the foyer into the living room. “Whose phone is this?”
“Mine.” Nickie followed her, and Emily set her iron orb on the dining room table before joining her sisters.
Laura snatched Nickie’s cell phone off the coffee table and handed it to its owner. “Pull up the news.”
“Uh…yeah. Crap. Okay.” Nickie’s fingers were a little slippery as she tried to settle them on the right numbers for her passcode and pull up the internet browser. Slippery fingers. Jeeze. Great for playing gigs. Totally the wrong thing for trying to work a smartphone. Finally, she had the browser up and froze. “What news?”
“I don’t know.” Laura whirled and paced the living room. “Anything that’s covering the airport right now.”
“Oh, my god.” Emily clapped her hands to her cheeks and dragged them down her face. “Please just let it be a normal mechanical malfunction.”
“Not sure those two things go together, Em.” Nickie typed in the first thing that came to mind—‘malfunction at Austin airport.’ A list of basically the same headline turned up on her browser. “Okay, so there’s Fox 7, ABC 13…Jeeze, you look it up.” She shoved her phone at Laura, who tossed the huge socket wrench aside with a loud clang against the hardwood floors. Emily winced and Nickie stared at the giant tool turned weapon.
Laura did a better job of keeping her cool and found what she’d hoped she wouldn’t. “Oh, man.” Her eyes moved back and forth across the article. “No…”
“Any time would be a good time to tell us,” Emily muttered.
“It’s bad.”
“Laura.”
The oldest Hadstrom sister looked up and couldn’t keep the remorse off her face no matter how hard she tried. “They are calling it a mechanical malfunction…”
“There’s a but in there somewhere,” Emily said, searching her sister’s gaze. “What’s the but?”
“But it’s not just contained to one plane.”
“Crap.” Nickie ran a hand through her hair and blinked. “How many?”
“Twelve. So far.” Laura swallowed and set her sister’s phone on the coffee table. “Different airlines. Same issue. And, by same issue, I mean nobody’s been able to figure out what happened to the planes.”
“But what happened?” Emily chewed on her fingernail.
“They just kinda…dropped out of the sky.” Turning around, Laura slumped onto the living room couch and brought her hands to her temples. “Arrivals and departures. Some of the planes lifted off and just dropped. Whoever was coming in and trying to land? Dropped. I didn’t see anything about casualties, but still.”
Emily sank into a squat beside the coffee table and hooked her fingers over the edge. “It’s not just the grackles.”
“Sounds like anything in the sky.” Nickie sat on the edge of the armchair across from the couch and bent, resting her forearms on her thighs. “If it’s the same thing that dropped the grackles this morning, that means it wasn’t us. We didn’t make anything worse by breaking the energy core under the airport, right?”
“I don’t think so.” Laura rubbed her forehead and puffed out a sigh. “I hope this is just Austin. If this stuff is happening anywhere else, there are zero other magicals who have any clue as to what’s going on. They’re totally in the dark.”
“It could just be Austin.” Emily nodded encouragingly. “That’s where the escape is. Just Austin. That’s where our family’s been since this ship set off from Arenya V. Nowhere else. Why would magic start giving people serious trouble anywhere else if everything’s right here?”
“No idea, Em.” Laura blinked at her hands. “It’s too soon to tell one way or the other, but I don’t think we have the time to figure it out. We need to keep going with this.”
“Yeah. I’m with you.” Nickie stood from the armchair and nodded. “We didn’t run into any human-possessing witch-killers just now. And there are still seven other energy cores pretty much untouched.”
“As far as we know,” Laura added.
“So, let’s go get as many as we can. That one wasn’t hard. We get in, get out. If the Gorafrex shows up, we have transport bubbles and the Clubhouse as a last resort.” Laura snorted at that one, and Nickie stepped toward her. “I’m serious. It probably won’t show up. It’s only been a day since we saw it last. Maybe it’s still looking for another human, but until I do start hearing alien beats in my head again, we should finish what we started.”
Emily swung her head one more time from Nickie toward Laura and waited for an answer. When it didn’t come, she offered, “I’m down to keep going. Got nothing else to do for the rest of the day.”
“Okay. Yeah.” Laura nodded and looked at them. “We’ll take care of as many as we can right now. I’ll start working on the rune tomorrow.” She stood and, this time, Emily lifted her hand to let her copper legacy ring do the work of casting a transport bubble.
While it grew to its intended size, Laura raised her hand and projected through her ring the map of Austin she’d put together, complete with the purple lines of the city and the yellow dots of all twelve energy cores she’d located. “So, anybody have a preference for the next one?”
“Totally up to you.” Nickie pulled at her earlobe and studied the glowing magical map floating in their living room.
Emily blinked and jumped toward the far wall beside the couch. With a grunt, she lifted the
Velikan wrench her sister had been hauling around and slung it up against her shoulder. “Seriously, this is the most important part, isn’t it?”
“You want your ball and chain?” Laura smirked at her own pun when Nickie let out a subdued giggle.
“Naw. At least, as long as you don’t mind sharing with your sisters and taking turns playing bash the ancient-technology pinata.” Emily shrugged.
“No problem.” Laura pointed at one yellow dot on her map—the next one moving clockwise from the airport. “This one, okay? Right in the Walnut Greenbelt.”
“Yep.”
“Got it.”
“Okay.” Laura removed the map with a wave of her hand, then turned and stepped into the transport bubble. Her sisters followed, and she took a deep breath. “Remember, just—”
“Visualize the energy core,” Emily said.
“And the Walnut Greenbelt,” Nickie added. “At the same time. I think we’ve got the hang of this Peabrain magic by now, Laura. At least the transport bubbles. I don’t know about everything else.”
“Well, I do still have a whole book on Peabrain magic.” Laura smiled at the Velikan socket wrench propped on Emily’s shoulder. “I bet we could learn a few things from that when this is all over.”
“We gotta get it done first.” Nickie nodded and pressed her lips together. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Thirteen
Just after 8:00 p.m., a luminous transport bubble burst into existence in the Hadstrom sisters’ living room. It burst, and Laura, Nickie, and Emily stood there, haggard and exhausted and a little discouraged. Emily, in particular, was soaking wet. She stalked across the foyer, through the small dining room, and into the kitchen without a word.
“Come on, Em.” Laura followed after her. The Velikan wrench came down on the dining room table with a thunk. “I had no idea it was a water line.”